Thousands of steps while cycling

[scottregan]

Whenever I wear Blaze or Charge HR while cycling, my 'steps' count for the day has 5000+ steps added.   

This happens with both 'auto-recognize' and also the explicit 'set exercise' .

One thing that is accurate -  is the actual record of the biking activity itself (either auto-recognize or set-exercise).   It says that the activity added zero steps, which is accurate.   (actually I probably walked a couple dozen steps when I got off my bike a couple times but that is not the point).

But what is not accurate - my main 'steps' graph for the day has thousands of steps added . 

I've read a few threads on this and my take is that this is a bug that will eventually get fixed, but in the meantime I should not wear fitbit while biking and just use Strava. (and by connecting to strava I can get my cycling activity in the fitbit record, which also seems to work.)

That said, did I just miss if there is any settting or fix for this?   I am not interested in marking all my cycling events as 'driving' 🙂

This error throws my weekly and monthly steps averages off quite a bit..

thanks!

[SunsetRunner]

Hi
I'm not interested in voting to fix what I consider a fault. I have returned the product and will try to find something more suitable. In my opinion those who are using cycling to boost step counts are simply conning themselves and cheating!

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

[VeganBiker2]

There must be a major bug with the Versa. I always select bike activity and go a minimum of 12 miles. Presto! I walked 4,000-plus steps. Not good. I'm losing favor with Fitbit.

--Patrick 

[jinith.thakker]

Can you brief it up? And which fitbit you use

[Rich_Laue]

@VeganBiker2  I consider it a flaw in there like logic, personally I feel when doing a non stopping exercise,  steps (in the case of biking bumps in the road), should not be counted. 

On the other hand,  we have people like @chadwick103 who always straps their Fitbit to the ankle to count every pedal as a step. 

We also have users who want bike miles converted to steps, but they are not sure what tye conversion factor should be based on.

A Fitbit mounted on the arm will not be able to count pedal cranks, but yes it will count vibrations in the handlebars and does so very nicely. I personally feel that during a bike ride, like the recording of a car ride, every bump registered as a step should be removed. These false steps should also be removed from the weekly and daily challenges. We have the same issue with elliptical machines.

Now other users want every pedal crank recorded as a step and added to their challenges. I think because for some their human nature is to cheat.

Yes their could be an option, for the user, to count road bumps as steps or not count road bumps as steps. Personally since during a bike ride, any "steps recorded",  have no relationship to actual calories expended, all these bumps counted should be removed and not added to any challenge. After all, one user could be riding on an indoor track and receive few "steps" , while another user is riding off road and will receive almost the same "steps" as if they had walked the same mile.

To me this is not good, but it seems since there are two popular but contradictory requests, Fitbit has decided to leave things "as is"  and continue to count bumps in the road as actual "steps" walked.

[chadwick103]

Don’t worry Rich, I switched to Apple Watch over two years ago and never looked back. The active calories focus is far more beneficial to my health goals than the mere counting of footsteps. 

[VeganBiker2]

Hey there, I use a Versa. I cycle 10 to 15 miles every day. I walk about
4,000 steps each day. But my Versa logs in 8,000 to 9,000 steps each day.

Patrick

--
Patrick Cavanaugh

[Rich_Laue]

@chadwick103 you must be lucky,  a quick search of the internet brings up thousands of complaints that cycling gives thousands of extra steps on the AW,  I also can find complaints that simply driving on a car adds many steps to to the AW. This also is the case with Garman products. 

[VeganBiker2]

@chadwick103 I do not know why you think I am lucky. However, I abhor
Fitbit for allowing this to happen. When I used the Blaze--it *did not* count
steps while cycling.

Patrick
--

[Rich_Laue]

Interesting comment @VeganBiker2 

It looks as if you are responding to my post, the one saying that @chadwick103  was lucky.

No one said that @VeganBiker2 was lucky. 

@chadwick103 said that he does not receive steps while biking with the AW. This I find very unlikely since in their words,  everybody receives false biking steps. 

[chadwick103]

No, what I said was that I stopped counting steps over a year ago, finding that the AW’s focus on active calories over steps is far more helpful. I never look up my step count anymore.